Deadpool 2

First Hit: This film is fun, irreverent and filled with out-loud laughs.

I thoroughly enjoyed the original Deadpool although many other reviewers didn’t. This one is even better and Ryan Reynolds (as Wayne Wade and alter ego Deadpool) knows how to make the kind of snarky pointed quips, some even at the camera, that bring this film to life.

The opening sequence does a great job of setting things up. We see Deadpool on a tear fighting for the downtrodden and beleaguered. After this burst of energy, he lays down on barrels of highly flammable liquid and blows himself up.

Bingo, we flash back four and a half months, to learn why he blew himself up. Wayne Wade was becoming family oriented and his wife Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) had decided that it was time to think about having children.

However, plans can change quickly and in this story they do as well. With single minded focus we see the reason why he goes on a crime fighting killing spree and decides to blow himself up. However, be that as it may, he decides that he must help Russell (Julian Dennison) a boy who has super powers of destroying things and people with fire.

Wade sees that he’s been physically abused, and this abuse might cause him to simply retaliate and become addicted to his ability to kill others at will. Russell teams up with Colossus to protect him as he goes after his abuser.

Wade sees that he needs help, so he recruits Domino (Zazie Beetz), Cable (Josh Brolin / Nathan Summers), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Vanisher (Brad Pitt), Zeitgeist (Bill Skarsgard), Weasel (T. J. Miller), and a whole host of others who end up not getting very far in the overall quest.

The scene of Wade choosing the team was funny as was their subsequent demise. All the characters had a quirkiness about them that made associated dialogue enhance their screen presence. What also worked about this film is that it has heart. There is a heart theme running through the scenes, if you can see through the pointed jokes.

I wish all Marvel and DC films brought this level of fun to them.

Reynolds is perfect in this role. I love how he carries a particular attitude of wise acre, yet with thoughtfulness. Baccarin was strong in her limited role. Brolin was excellent and appropriately tough as Cable. Beetz was superb as the strong supportive woman whose super power was luck. Dennison was very good as the young boy, tired of being picked on and wanting to get revenge. Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick and Reynolds wrote a quirky fun script. David Leitch did an excellent job of making this film work. The visuals were strong, the fight scenes were well choreographed, and it seemed like it was probably a joy to make.

Overall: This is a fun, full of adventurous action, film.

Tully

First Hit: I was genuinely surprised by the ending of this powerful film about motherhood.

Marlo (Charlize Theron) is 9 months pregnant, mother of two other children Emmy (Maddie Dixon-Poirer) and Jonah (Asher Miles Fallica), and wife to Craig (Mark Duplass). The family home is rather chaotic and stems, in-part, because of Jonah’s “quirky” presence and because motherhood has wiped her out and taken her spirit.

Craig is a good husband, it is apparent that he loves his wife and does support the family process by doing their children’s homework with them and helping Marlo to make the children’s lunches. There is a scene towards the end of the film that shows this sweetness and togetherness.

Marlo’s brother Drew (Ron Livingston) has made it financially and as his new baby gift to his sister offers to pay for a night nanny to assist his worn-out sister.

She resists because she perceives that this will show weakness and a lack of ability. After the new baby arrives, her worn out life gets worse and there is little she can do given the pressure of Jonah’s school is asking her to remove Jonah because of his “quirky” behavior, along with trying to meet the new baby’s needs.

She resigns herself to making the call to a night nanny. Tully (Mackenzie Davis) arrives one evening with a bright open smile, lots of empathy, and skills far beyond her age of 26. Each evening Tully arrives and takes over the care of the new baby Mia. She brings Mia up to Marlo for the night feedings, sits and watches until the feeding is complete, and takes Mia back downstairs.

Tully, also cleans the house, bakes cupcakes and does lots of other things that release Marlo from the heaviness of raising a newborn at night. Because she’s now getting sleep, Marlo becomes more present and active with her children and starts to make elaborate meals for her family instead of the “frozen pizza” dinner she often throws down.

Tully and Marlo become friends and what they share together slowly reveals who Marlo is, who Tully is, and Marlo's love for Craig.

This film speaks directly and pointedly to the difficulties many women have being a mother. For this alone, many men need to see this film.

Theron is dynamic in this role. Not only did she put on about fifty pounds to make the role feel real for her and the audience, her embodiment of the frustration of raising children was spot on. Davis as Tully was amazing. I loved her joyful embrace of being an empathetic, smart, supportive nanny. Duplass was very good as the caring loving husband who needed to learn more about helping his wife. Dixon-Poirer was wonderful as the daughter. Her slow emerging as part of the family was great. Fallica was excellent as the quirky young boy. His ability to slowly evolve as Marlo evolves was perfect. Diablo Cody wrote an excellent script and the film’s direction by Jason Reitman made this story come alive through great acting.

Overall: I was truly moved by the representation of motherhood, family, and life as this film unfolded.

Finding Your Feet

First Hit: A very inspirational, delightful and fun film.

Sandra (Imelda Staunton) is married to Mike (John Sessions) who has just received his MBE from the British Crown. They live in a big house and Sandra is a dutiful wife giving everything of herself to support her husband.

During a party she walks in on Mike making-out with their mutual friend Pamela (Josie Lawrence) and Mike tells her that they've had the affair going on for five years. Mike has no intention of stopping the affair.

Sandra walks out of the house and goes to her sister Bif's (Celia Imrie) flat which is in a very crowded common person's neighborhood. Bif is an adventurer. At about age 70, she takes dancing classes with others her age, rides a bike and goes swimming in a outdoor pond facility. Her flat is messy. Her life has been and is lived as fully as she can make it.

Sandra and Bif have not been in contact with each other for years and their two juxtaposed lifestyles make it difficult for them to live together, but gentle nudging from Bif and her friends, Charlie (Timothy Spall), Ted (David Hayman), and Jackie (Joanna Lumley), she begins to realize she's suppressed her life for Mike and slowly becomes more joyous and carefree.

At their mutual dance class, they learn new steps and put on a spontaneous mashup performance that gets filmed and goes viral. They get invited to Rome to perform.

After Bif passes away, Mike and Pamela break up and Mike realizes he misses what he had. He asks Sandra to come back into their home. She gives it a try, but the lessons she's learned about herself from her newfound friends require her step into her life and find her own feet.

Staunton is fantastic as a once brave woman re-finding her source of inspiration for living her life. Sessions is excellent as the stuffy brit who took advantage of his wife's loyalty and lived only for himself. Imrie was amazing as Sandra's sister Bif. Her edge was perfectly appropriate for the part. I loved her story about having only one love while they were in Rome.  Spall was sublime as the loyal husband who has a wife with alzheimer's. I loved how he got his van back when it was confiscated. Hayman was wonderful as one of the dance team and a close friend of Charlie. Lumley was great as one of the dance team and inspirational friend. Meg Leonard and Nick Moorcroft wrote and wonderfully touching script. Richard Loncraine did an excellent job of directing this ensemble of performers to deliver a wonderfully inspiring film.

Overall: This film was filled with emotion through endearing characters that most everyone could relate to.

I Feel Pretty

First Hit: At times, very funny but was also a bit sluggish in getting to the point.

I’m not a big fan of Amy Schumer’s acting or humor. However, in this film there is an upgrade to her “I don’t care, take it or leave it” shtick because in this role she adds and portrays an honest air of humility.

As Renee Bennett, we see her working with Mason (Adrian Martinez) in a hidden on-line sales warehouse for a high-end cosmetics firm called Lilly LeClaire started by Lilly (Lauren Hutton) and run by her granddaughter Avery (Michelle Williams).

Because of a computer glitch, Renee has to physically deliver their online marketing reports to headquarters office which is in an elegant downtown NYC building. Walking into the office, the high-end, arrogant and exclusiveness of this company is put on full force. Everyone is perfectly shaped and quaffed. But it is when they open their mouths that the level of arrogance really comes out.

When she drops off the reports, she learns that the receptionist position is open and wishes that she could apply for and get the position. When she looks at the qualifications, she realizes she doesn’t quite fit the bill.

In her attempts to get into shape, she goes to a Soul Cycle. The stuff there is more of the same attitude but she also meets a young woman who is beautiful but also struggles from being seen for not who she is on the inside.

In an incident where she hits her head, she transforms her perception of herself and now sees herself as beautiful.

With this newfound perception, she applies for and gets the receptionist’s job. Her strength is her realness to everyday people and thinking about others. However, the downside is that she begins to think she’s better than her close friends, Jane (Busy Phillips) and Vivian (Aidy Bryant).

Slowly pushing away her friends with her new found positive self-esteem she also seduces a unconfident Ethan (Rory Scovel).

What Renee doesn’t know is that she is the same person physically that she was before she hits her head.

The film goes on to show how Renee’s down to earthiness helps the cosmetic company grow their new brand in stores like Target, but when she re-hits her head, she loses her perception of herself as a beautiful woman and tries to hide from her boss Avery, Ethan, and others.

There are very funny scenes, like when she’s seeing herself as beautiful for the very first time. The comments while looking in the mirror are hilarious. Also, it was funny when she enters a hot girl contest and almost wins. The Soul Cycle scenes are funny as well. However, I didn’t think Avery’s brother Grant’s (Tom Hopper) character was needed. There there are office scenes that didn’t add much to the film either.

Schumer was strong and I would say this was her best film yet. Williams character was oddly funny. She played a smart beautiful woman who had a very high-pitched voice. At times the character was difficult to understand but I liked her. Hutton was fantastic. It was great to see her in this role. Bryant and Phillips were very strong as Renee’s friends that both supported her and also guided her to look at how she was treating people. Scovel was fantastic. I loved his character and his slowly warming up to the power of Renee. Topper was good but I didn’t think his role was needed. Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein co-wrote and co-directed this film. Without knowing their process of co-directing, I can only suspect that the issues I had with the unevenness were because there may have been two visions of a single film.

Overall: Although unevenly paced, I liked many of the scenes and thought they were out-loud funny.

Blockers

First Hit: There are some very funny scenes although at times they felt too staged.

Anyone that has been a parent to a teenager and any teenager, can and will appreciate, laugh, and smile at many of the setups and scenes in this film.

Lisa (Leslie Mann), Mitchell (John Cena), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) have daughters who meet up in grade school.  They are going to be lifelong friends.

Julie (Kathryn Newton) is Lisa’s daughter and doesn’t have a father. She and Lisa are very close and it is obvious that when Julie leaves for college, Lisa will be alone. Oddly we have no idea how Lisa financially survives so well. The only hint is that Julie is the product of a famous rocker.

Mitchell’s daughter is Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan). Her mother Marcie (Sarayu Blue) is a strong feminist who runs the show in their house. However, Mitchell has a close relationship with his daughter and guided her to become physically strong and confident, like him. Sam (Gideon Adlon) is Hunter’s daughter. Her parents are divorced and Hunter has been less active in Sam’s life recently.

Together the three girls decide to lose their virginity on Prom night as a way to do something momentous together prior to leaving high school and going off to college. The parents learn about this plan and decide to stop the girls from making, what they think, will be the biggest mistake of their lives.

The film takes you on this journey of them trying to find their daughters, how they confront their daughter’s choice in men, and what they ultimately learn. Conversely the movie also shows how the daughters find what makes them strong fine human beings and their honesty with each other.

The upside is that there are numerous out-loud funny scenes and situations. The downside is that there are moments that seem overly set up. It is almost like they looked at the script and said, the next scene we’ll do this, then they did the scene. It felt blockish at times.

Mann is always interesting because she can be very funny in a very straight sort of way. She’s quirky, goofy, and funny. Cena was funny and his physical size and presence was put to good use in this film. That he wore his phone in a hip holster added to his goofiness. Barinholtz was good and his final scene with his daughter was wonderful. Newton was excellent as Mann’s daughter. Viswanathan was wonderful as a young girl ready to try anything while mindfully figuring out what is appropriate for her. Adlon was perfect as the young girl finally acknowledging her sexuality to herself, friends, and father. Ramona Young was very good as the young girl who entices Sam to come into her own. Blue is wonderful as the strong mother. Miles Robbins (as Connor, Kayla’s boy choice) was excellent. Graham Phillips (as Austin, Julie’s boy choice) was very good. Jimmy Bellinger (as Chad, Sam’s original choice) was hilarious. Brian Kehoe and Jim Kehoe wrote a good script, it just felt too set up at times. Kay Cannon directed. Her strength was making funny scenes funny but some scenes were too pre-setup.

Overall:  If you want to laugh at some silliness, this movie will provide the laughs.